Background...

Carnage has escaped from the Ravencroft institute with the ability to
regenerate his symbiote from his mutated bloodstream. Along the way he has
acquired several followers: Shriek, Doppelganger, Demogoblin, and
Carrion II.
They began a massive killing spree that has left New York in absolute
terror.

Spider-Man has recruited his own army to combat the chaos: Cloak and
Dagger, Firestar, Captain America, Iron Fist, and
Deathlok. They have finally cleared the streets of all civilians, leaving
only them to face the psychopaths.

As of the previous chapter, Dagger - previously dead at the hands of Shriek -
emerges from within Cloak

Both heroes and villains are surprised to see Dagger alive again. She
explains that Shriek's attack caused her light powers to feed back into
themselves and caused her to explode, dispersing her essence. She instinctively
found her way into the dark dimension of Cloak's cape, which provided her an
opportunity to pull herself together. She states that the love they have for
each other (platonic? romantic? not stated) kept her sane long enough to do this.

Shriek doesn't believe any of this – specifically the "love keeping you sane"
part - and attacks her again. Dagger responds with equal force, but without
malice. Carnage and Cloak keeps their respective sides from entering the battle
for a completely different set of reasons.

Dagger weakens Shriek. Instead of killing her in retaliation, she users her
light powers to bring out the repressed portions of her mind in an effort to
help her regain her sanity. This works for a few moments until her anger
returns and she tries to obliterate Dagger again. She is saved by Spider-man.

Carnage approaches Shriek and begins to question her. He was concerned that
she was going to switch sides. She assures him that she doesn't really believe
any of that "love" stuff and doesn't trust any of the heroes. Pleased that
they're back together again, Carnage turns around to discover that the heroes
are gone. Well almost all of them. Spider-Man stands alone in the middle of
the street and challenges all four of them to a final confrontation. Spider-Man
holds his own against the four of them for a while, but eventually is
overwhelmed by sheer numbers.

As they prepare to finally kill him, Spider-Man's allies return. This show
was a distraction to allow them the time to cobble together a special device.
It channels Iron Fist and Dagger's combined powers through Deathlok into a
bio-feedback device that amplifies the human brain's calming alpha waves. They
focus the device on Shriek, whose power unconsciously transfers a powerful
calming wave over her allies.

Carrion is the first to completely succumb to the effects of the device and
reverts to Malcolm McBride. Demogoblin tries to escape, but is stopped by
Spider-Man. In his weakened state, the goblin passes out before he can
retaliate. Shriek is experiencing a state of complete euphoria and encourages
Carnage to not fight the wave. Carnage refuses to give in, writing in pain from
being forced to confront long-forgotten memories of abuse. After all this time,
hope and healing are concepts that are beyond his comprehension. The feedback
eventually overloads the device, causing it to explode.

When the smoke clears, they collect Shriek and Demogoblin preparing to take
them back to the Vault. McBride will go a physician to ensure that the carrion
virus has been purged from his system. Iron Fist discovers that Carnage died as
a result of the feedback.

Later, Spider-Man sits alone in Central Park trying to process what just
happened. Yes the right side one, but he didn't want Carnage dead. At this
point Venom appears behind him, angry over the death of Carnage; he wanted to be
the one to kill him.

Emerging from the nearby pond, Carnage announces to his most hated
adversaries that he's alive and well. Venom is overjoyed at this turn of
events; Spider-Man is not.

In General...

The fact that Carnage is still alive shouldn't surprise anyone. We still have
one more chapter to go. That aside, the story was executed fairly well.

The "happy machine" that the heroes cobbled together is about as believable
as any other deus ex machina that could have been used to stop Shriek, Carrion,
and Demogoblin without killing them. It was established that Iron Fist could
project a wave of calm to a group of people, and Dagger's power was shown in
this issue to have a similar effect. That doesn't make it less wacky. It makes
about as much sense as it doesn't.

Also how did this device revert Carrion back to Malcolm McBride? The virus
has hate as a catalyst or something?

Overall Rating...

2.5 webs. The happy machine and the preachy dialog about love conquering all
bothered
me. I understand and respect what they're saying. I prefer something more
subtle instead of being hit over the head with this concept the entire issue.

For some reason, the ending of this chapter made me think of the Genesis
album ...And Then There Were Three.... The three that everyone wants to
watch fight for a whole issue. Well, guess what sports fans, the next chapter
is exactly that.

Footnote...

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Marvel. It uses content copyright by Marvel,
Without Permission. This material is
used for the purposes of informed discussion, and is not intended to
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commercial goals.